The Art of the Pimp: One Man's Search for Love, Sex, and Money (40 page)

Cami Parker

The story I’m about to tell you is very, very sad. It’s not sad for me. Well, at times it was — and you’ll probably shed more than a few tears on my behalf by the time you’re done reading this. But don’t cry for me, because I’m a survivor. This is the true story about a soulless pimp named Dennis Hof, a man who has never known love.

• • •

With absolutely nothing to gain, here is the 100 percent honest truth about what Dennis is really like and what it’s really like for a twenty-two-year-old girl to live with, be emotionally and mentally abused and manipulated by a sixty-five-year-old pimp for three years.

I would like to preface my story by saying that, contrary to popular belief, I have zero daddy issues. My dad is amazing and supportive and I love him deeply. I grew up in a household with two happy parents and wonderful siblings. My childhood was awesome.

• • •

I was sitting on my couch in my apartment in New York City
when
The Tyra Banks Show
came on, featuring Dennis and a “pregnant bunny” (which I found truly sickening for the unborn child, but that’s not the point.) The thing about Dennis is that he will take a stinking rotting dumpster, paint it with cheap glitter spray paint from the dollar store, and tell you it’s the Hope Diamond. And you will believe him.

• • •

So there he sat in his shiny pimp hat, with his shiny pimp shirt, and his shiny pimp smile, telling his shiny pimp stories.

• • •

“The BunnyRanch is the most wonderful place on Earth! All the girls here are so happy! These girls are hotter than Playboy Bunnies! If you like sex and you like money, this is definitely the perfect place for you!”

Well hey, I like money and I love sex! And according to this shiny, sparkling man the BunnyRanch would be the perfect place for me.

• • •

I admit I was more than a little intrigued when Dennis said all the girls there are
soooo
gorgeous and there’s a six-month waiting list to get in. Well, I was pretty gorgeous myself, but if all the other girls were too, and they all wanted in so bad, what chance did a twenty-two-year-old Canadian girl living in New York City with A-cup breasts stand? Still, I sent an inquiring e-mail with a few bikini shots from my modeling profile. I got an e-mail back from Madam Suzette within five minutes. “Great pics! Can you come next week?”

Umm . . . okay.

This was surprising, considering everything I had just heard this man say about the long waiting list of girls clamoring to work at the BunnyRanch. Besides, what kind of girls
could just pick up and fly across the country in a week for a two-week trial (the minimum length of trip that Suzette told me a “new bunny” is allowed to make)? So no, Suzette, I can’t come in a week.

But I can come in three!

• • •

What can I say? I was flattered. With a house full of “supermodels”? And a six-month waiting list? And they wanted me right away! And Suzette even said that “Daddy” would love me. That was the shiny guy! All I had to do was give myself a name.

So I got a babysitter for my cat, paid my rent, and “Cami Parker” was off to Carson City, Nevada. The only thing I knew about Nevada was Vegas. This was not Vegas.

Not at all.

• • •

So here I was, a city girl in a small town. I grabbed my bags and headed outside to meet the limo they’d promised to send. The limo was there, crowded with three other girls, all on “return trips” to the ranch. I was the only newbie. Oh, and by the way? None of them were supermodels. But you knew that.

One was a chubby girl, around twenty-five. Another was a very attractive blonde, probably in her mid-forties. And the third was just plain. Not unattractive, but no one you’d pick out of a crowd. Certainly not “models as beautiful as Playboy Playmates.”

And they all said the same thing: “Daddy’s gonna love you!”

“Do you have to sleep with Dennis?” I mean, he was
three times my age and three times my weight.

“Well . . . no . . . I guess you don’t have to . . .” Cue side long glances. “But you should.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, you want Daddy to like you. You won’t have a very good time if he doesn’t, so if he wants to, you definitely should.”

Huh.

• • •

When we pulled up in front, my heart stopped. It wasn’t glamorous at all. It was dilapidated and gross, a bunch of trailers sitting at the end of a dusty dirt road in the middle of nowhere. This wasn’t what the shiny pimp on Tyra Banks had promised at all. When we got inside it was worse. The entrance was bright, but once you came through the foyer it was small, dark, and dingy, like a strip club out of the ‘80s. It smelled like sex and ashtrays.

One of the cashiers ushered me in to where Madam Suzette and Dennis were conducting their weekly “tea party.” I would later learn that missing the tea party was a big no-no, even on your day off.

• • •

So I finally saw Dennis and was impressed. The things that attract me to a man have never been physical attributes, but confidence, intelligence, power, control, humor, the ability to command a room. Dennis appeared to possess all of these (please note that the operative word here is
appeared
) and I thought his energy was sexy. Unfortunately, the rest was less than impressive.

• • •

Madam Suzette is an older woman who tried way too hard
to appear sweet. Growing up in big cities you’re pretty good at sniffing out fakery from an initial impression. I know that might seem in total contrast to the way I would be fooled and manipulated over the coming years (just wait; you’ll see what I mean), but Dennis is a professional manipulator.

• • •

They ushered me in, and Dennis and Suzette welcomed me and introduced me to the other girls who didn’t seem quite as excited to see me. But it didn’t matter because I wasn’t there for the girls. I was there for a new experience. I was completely out of my element and it was obvious that I didn’t belong there. These were country girls who had never seen the ocean, been to a gallery opening, or even been on an airplane before making their first pilgrimage to the ranch.

I was living in New York City. I’m educated and I value culture highly. I just happen to embrace my strong sense of sexuality. I was so obviously a different breed.

But I was enamored with Dennis. He was like a ringmaster running this whole show, full of blustery bravado and everyone regarded him as highly important. I love men that are important.

We had to go over the “Bunny Bible,” which is basically a big binder stuffed with a bunch of photocopied pages. The rules were surprisingly stringent. You must be at every single lineup during your “shift.” You must not draw extra attention to yourself at lineup. You must remain in the parlor at all times if there’s a client there, even though you’re not being paid to be there and they’re just buying beers, chatting up the eye candy.

The house will take 50 percent of all earnings, plus daily room and board fees and doctor’s fees. There were no set prices, so negotiating the cost of our services would be our responsibility. I always thought the sex industry was for free spirits, but this was starting to sound more and more like a corporate job.

We proceeded to the foyer, where Suzette taught me how the “lineup” worked. If a client doesn’t have a preexisting appointment with a lady he is offered a “lineup.” Suzette rings the bell and every lady in the house comes running. They then get into line and stand formally (remember no extra attention! No waving! No giggling!) to introduce themselves.

“Hello, I’m Cami Parker.”

The client would then either have a drink at the bar or choose a lady to give him a “tour” of the ranch, ending in her bedroom, negotiating services. Again, not what I imagined. It seemed awkward, but easy enough.

• • •

I returned to my room and moments later a young blonde threw the door open, bursting in. “Hi, you’re the new girl? I’m Barbie! I just wanted to say hi because I was new once and I know it’s hard.” She seemed friendly and sweet.

But then the refrain again. “Daddy’s going to love you!” Followed by something a bit more disconcerting. “These girls will hate you, though. You better watch your back!”

Hate me? Why? I’m the nicest person I know! Are you kidding me? I’m Canadian! We’re born nice. We pretty much apologize to our mothers for the labor pains as soon as we’re out.

“Don’t worry, you’ll see!”

• • •

It was a long day of traveling, and all I wanted was a shower. But soon the P.A. system in my room went off. (The P.A. system is used by cashiers to tell you when your “party” with a client is over, to wake you in the morning, to ask you why you missed a lineup, and most frequently, used by the madam to spy on conversations that girls are having in what they think is the privacy of their own room.) It was one of the cashiers asking me if I would like to go to dinner with Dennis, his friend Ron Jeremy (cool!), and a few other girls.

“Well sure, what time? I’m just getting in the shower.”

“He wants to leave in five minutes.”

“Umm . . . okay . . .”

I agreed to go (open mind!), but was annoyed that I wasn’t given more than five minutes’ notice. I wondered where “Daddy” was originally from that he had such a lack of social decorum. I was twenty-two years old and had more class in my pinky finger than he had in his entire body. But I went. And it was fun. It was a shitty restaurant in a shitty town, but it was a new experience.

I love Ron. He’s the sweetest man you could ever hope to meet in your life. And I was soon infatuated with Dennis. I’ve always liked older guys, because I wasn’t always 100 percent confident in my decision-making abilities (I was twenty-two! Of course I was unsure!), and loved men that had the solid answer for everything. He’s seen it all. He’s done it all. He knows what works and what doesn’t. I don’t have to learn from mistakes, because there’s someone to tell me what’s right.

I liked that. I liked him.

That was my first night. That was how I fell down the Bunny Hole. And that’s how I got myself into a giant mess.

• • •

As much as I liked Dennis, I still had no intention of ever returning to that place. It wasn’t my style, wasn’t my scene. He must have realized that, but sensing a hot commodity, went into full crisis aversion mode. He worked on me really, really hard those first couple of weeks, treating me like I was far more special than the other girls. We went to dinner and a movie almost every night. He told me he had never met anyone like me in his life (still true, obviously) and that he needed me to stay with him. Everyone knows that “need” is my hot button word. As soon as anyone tells me they “need” anything, I’m right there. It’s the Canadian condition. He even gave me a diamond necklace. It was tiny and cheap and came from a big Ziploc bag in his desk drawer filled with the crap, but still. It felt special to me.

I tried to be somewhat discreet, because the other girls, save one or two who were too old for his BS, were treating me so hatefully. I didn’t know at the time it was because he leads them on with lies and false promises, which obviously breeds a lot of resentment. He also told me he wanted me to do things — business related — that were technically not allowed in order to give me a competitive business edge. To stand in a certain spot in line, to speak and greet clients in a certain way, to wear certain outfits that the other girls would never be able to get away with. I did as he asked of me, further alienating myself.

I couldn’t understand why the other girls were treating me that way, even though I was warm and friendly to everyone. They would talk about me as though I wasn’t in the room. They would call me names and criticize everything about my body, my walk, my voice, my sweetness. Even
the girls who were clearly strung out on drugs, who I expected would at least be happy people (that’s why people do drugs, right?) were hateful.

I remember one girl in particular. She was warm and kind to me, offering me advice, and even inviting me to join her and a client one afternoon. She was one of the druggies, but very sweet. She had been to rehab eight times during her stint at the ranch, but I don’t judge. It didn’t occur to me that her drug use was probably induced — or at least exacerbated — by the ranch and Dennis, with his penchant for starting fires, then standing back to gleefully watch them engulf everything.

One day I heard her having a complete and total meltdown in her room. She was crying and shrieking, “FUCK THIS BITCH CAMI PARKER!!! I DON’T KNOW WHO THE FUCK SHE THINKS SHE IS!!! I’VE BEEN FUCKING DENNIS FOR FIVE YEARS!!! HE PROMISED ME I WAS GOING TO BE HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND!!!!” (He promises everyone they’ll be his new girlfriend because he thrives on drama and it makes him feel important to have women want him.) Then she just started screaming, “I’LL KILL HER! I’LL KILL HER!! I’LL KILL HER!!!” I don’t know who she was talking to (if anybody), but it was scary. I realized she had been pretending to be nice to me because she loved Dennis and wanted him to think she was sweet. She stole the game from Suzette. Nikki eventually ended up stealing my BlackBerry because she was so jealous of the times I’d be sitting in her room and Dennis was texting me nonstop.

She wasn’t removed from the house for this, but Dennis got me a new phone. He likes to buy things for new girls or
new girlfriends to pretend to be generous. Over the course of our relationship he told girls he bought me every single thing that I had purchased for myself. If Dennis is going to buy you shoes, you better believe they’re coming from Shoe Warehouse with a maximum price tag of $35.

The one or two bags he did get me were “early birthday gifts” — when my birthday was six months away. As if Dennis would ever spend what I spend on couture. He’s the cheapest man alive! He’s so cheap he returned a Christmas gift I got him at Louis Vuitton and tried to exchange it to get “top booker gifts,” the presents he gets for the girl whose pussy he made the most money off of that month. He’s so cheap that he would book himself a first-class travel ticket and stick me in coach half the time to save money. What man does that to the woman he lives with?